Tue 29 Jun 2010
Reviewed by Barry Gardner: ARCHER MAYOR – The Skeleton’s Knee.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[3] Comments
ARCHER MAYOR – The Skeleton’s Knee. Mysterious Press, hardcover, December 1993; paperback reprint, November 1994. Joe Gunther #4.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Mayor is one of the best writers to come along in the last few years.
Lieutenant Joe Gunther’s got a 25 year old murder. A man just died who lived on a farm outside Brattleboro, Vermont, and the autopsy shows it was the result of an old, untreated bullet wound. Nobody knows anything about the man, but he had a lot of old, circa 1969 and before, cash money.
When the police go over the grounds searching for a gun, they uncover a skeleton with an artificial knee, also circa 1969. The trail leads to Chicago where the operation was performed, and leads Joe down unforeseen paths, and into unexpected danger.
Mayor tells a story about as well as anyone writing cop novels these days. His prose can be almost lyrical when describing the Vermont countryside, and crisp and clean when describing the to and fro of police work. Gunther is am appealing and well drawn character, as are several others who reappear in the series.
The Chicago section of the book reads as realistically as the Vermont, which means Mayor has either been there or knows how to fake it well.
There’s a lot of nicely handled detective work, and the only problems I had with the book were a few plot elements that I had trouble believing fully. That’s true with most of ’em, though, and it doesn’t keep me from recommending it to you.
The Joe Gunther series —
1. Open Season (1988)
2. Borderlines (1990)
3. Scent of Evil (1992)
4. The Skeleton’s Knee (1993)
5. Fruits of the Poisonous Tree (1994)
6. The Dark Root (1995)
7. The Ragman’s Memory (1996)
8. Bellows Falls (1997)
9. The Disposable Man (1998)
10. Occam’s Razor (1999)
11. The Marble Mask (2000)
12. Tucker Peak (2001)
13. The Sniper’s Wife (2002)
14. Gatekeeper (2003)
15. The Surrogate Thief (2004)
16. St. Alban’s Fire (2005)
17. The Second Mouse (2006)
18. Chat (2007)
19. The Catch (2008)
20. The Price of Malice (2009)
21. Red Herring (2010)
June 29th, 2010 at 8:20 pm
I think Barry was right on target when he touted the writing skills of Archer Mayor the way he did. Both Mayor and his leading character, Joe Gunther, have been around a long time now.
I remember reading this review when Barry first wrote it, and I made sure that not only did I buy this book when it came out in paperback, but I also bought the three before it and most of the ones since.
And yet, I’ve yet to read one, and I cannot explain why. They’re there, waiting for me, and I just haven’t had the right push. It’s my error all the way.
Maybe reading this review again will do it.
June 29th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
This series started at a time I cut drastically back on my mystery reading (new ones anyway) and somehow I didn’t get on board when I came back later. I can’t say why, because I don’t think I ever read a bad review of the series.
Somehow whenever I am thinking of buying one something else comes along and catches my attention, but I know from this and other reviews I’m missing something good.
June 30th, 2010 at 6:02 am
I’ve read the entire series (except the new one), so obviously I agree with Barry. One thing I like about it as that he moves the books around different parts of Vermont (with some books having sections in Massachusetts and even NYC) so they don’t get too samey. Dana Stabenow does the same with her Kate Shugak series in Alaska, though I prefer the Gunthers overall.
The characters are well differentiated and enough happens to move things along in their private lives that it’s best to read the series in order, yet the private life stuff isn’t intrusive enough to bog down the mysteries.